• 5 min read

🔥 How I built my LinkedIn brand

I'm finally giving the tea on how I went from ~3,000 followers to over 40,000 in a little over a year.

But first, I'm formally announcing this will be my mood the rest of the summer:

A tweet from Betches that reads: "saying, 'this is going to ruin the tour' after every minor inconvenience"

The Playbook

Because I keep hearing these things from you all:

"I want to be more visible on LinkedIn but don't know where to start."
"I don't know what I should say."
"I don't like self promotion; it feels icky"
"Is this worth posting on LinkedIn?"
"What if my competitors see what I'm doing?"
"People are going to disagree with me in the comments."

I’m going to show you how to get past this. I promise you’re overthinking it.

The reality is no one is thinking about you as much as you think they are. How many content creators do you actually think about in your free time and ponder how much of a loser they are because you saw their post? Unless you're a raging a*hole with serious self worth issues, probably not at all (and those people aren't your audience anyway 💅).

Instead you're going to think about :

  1. Who will benefit from what I have to say?
    These are your people. You are speaking for them, advocating for them, giving them voice and a place to feel belonging. Your thoughts and content are to serve them and make their lives better, even if just a little easier.
  2. What is my plan for receiving negativity?
    You 100% will get rude comments. It just comes with the internet living in society so if you expect it to come, you'll go "there it is..." instead of feeling blindsided. Decide in advance how you want to engage with spirited debate, and what's the plan for abuse and trolls. Then you just act on it :)
A cover thumbnail of a TikTok video with me speaking, overlay text says "How I 13x my LinkedIn followers in a year

Then you are going to focus on creating content that attracts and content that converts. These are not the same!

Content that attracts is meant to get more people into your ecosystem. Think: followers, impressions, engagements.

Content that converts is meant to get those people to take an action. Think: newsletter subscriptions, DM inquiries, form fills.

This is where most people stop. Social media is not intended to be a broadcast channel. Read that again! Social media is social. If you are only posting and not participating in the community, you will not grow. It's a huge time suck for little if any return.

Engagement and connection are critical and involve ongoing commenting, reposting, DMing, and building your network. This does not mean liking and writing "congrats!" on posts. Users on LinkedIn are actual people turns out, and thoughtful engagement wins the day.

For example, I wrote the following comment instead of "congrats" on a post recently and it landed me a spot on the OP's podcast:

A comment from Kara says: "Congratulations! I know how much work goes into this type of content and applaud you for doing it anyway. Hope it brings you continued success, can't wait to listen." The OP responds: "Want to come on as a guest?"

Don't forget the DMs! Even a "nice to meet!" exchange goes a long way in boosting the algorithm. You're essentially teaching LinkedIn that you each consent to being in each other's circle and so the algorithm will show you each other's content.

The secret is in growing an organic, engaged following as part of a community, not just being a "thought leader". You have to share your thoughts in ways that feel authentic and resonate, but also listen, engage, and encourage participation. It's social!

Since I've grown my following I have:

  • Received 80% of our agency leads from my personal DMs
  • Signed my first brand influencer deal
  • Was invited to dozens of podcasts (here are the ones I said yes to)
  • Launched a private community with over 500 active members
  • Built my LinkedIn newsletter to over 14,000 subscribers

When I say creating my brand on LinkedIn has changed my life, it's an understatement. And I do it while running my agency, without spending hours a day on my account.

Want more? I created a step by step guide with my exact schedule of activities, content prompts, how to structure your posts, algorithm killers, and more in this course. It includes a video tutorial where I walk you through what I did and how it worked.

First 10 people get it 25% off with code PEOPLEFIRST

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What to Know This Week


Moving to a 4-day workweek does not mean just deleting a day. It also doesn't mean adding extra hours to the other 4 days 🤦‍♀️ (who decided 40 hours was the magic number anyway!? Thanks Mr. Ford.). It takes systems and smart tools that help you operate more efficiently in less time, asynchronously. I'm starting to share some of my favorites.

Demand Gen vs. Lead Gen: If there isn't a market demand for what you do, it doesn't matter that you do it better than a competitor. ✨ You have to start where the customer is. ✨

Creating custom stock video for your brand's social media can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Learn how to get months worth of b-roll for about $1,500.

Father's Day has come and gone but if you're a dad who needs a little extra love and encouragement, I got you.

Hot Jobs

Pro tip: Often the hiring managers comment on my #karasweeklyroundup posts so you can get an "in" by connecting, commenting, and DMing ✌️.

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